The fall in the pound has brought with it food inflation and cost of living increases, with little evidence that the negative economic effects have been balanced by a boost in exports.

Alongside its analysis of the falling pound’s impact on Britain, the BCC released its latest forecasts for growth in the economy. The group actually raised its 2017 forecast marginally from 1.5% to 1.6%, but cut its predictions for 2018 and 2019, to 1.2% from 1.3%, and 1.4% from 1.5%.

“While some businesses report strong trading conditions, the UK economy as a whole is treading water, and there is no sign on the horizon of a return to healthier levels of growth,” the BCC’s Director General Adam Marshall said.

The BCC represents businesses from all sectors and from all across the UK.

“It is increasingly clear that the post-EU referendum slide in the value of sterling has done more harm than good,”Suren Thiru, the BCC’s head of economics said in a statement.

“Inflation is being driven by the sizable increases in the cost of imported raw materials over the past year, and is expected to remain a drag on consumer spending over the near term, with pay growth not expected to outpace price growth until 2019,”

Thiru’s words echo the main driver of the economic slowdown that has befallen the UK economy in the year and a quarter since the referendum — namely that the falling pound has pushed up prices, squeezing the finances of average Brits, and denting consumer spending.

Slowing consumer spending and overall household consumption are widely acknowledged to have been behind the slowdown in the wider British economy this year, which has pushed the UK to the bottom of the pile in terms of GDP growth in major economies.

“The contribution of net trade to UK GDP growth is not expected to be as strong as we previously predicted, as we see little evidence that the depreciation of the pound is materially boosting the UK’s external position,” the BCC’s Thiru says.

“While the outlook for UK exporters is for modest growth, imports are expected to grow at a faster rate than we previously forecast, with little evidence that consumers or firms are switching away from imports towards domestic alternatives despite their rising cost.”

Alongside its analysis of the falling pound’s impact on Britain, the BCC released its latest forecasts for growth in the economy. The group actually raised its 2017 forecast marginally from 1.5% to 1.6%, but cut its predictions for 2018 and 2019, to 1.2% from 1.3%, and 1.4% from 1.5%.

“While some businesses report strong trading conditions, the UK economy as a whole is treading water, and there is no sign on the horizon of a return to healthier levels of growth,” the BCC’s Director General Adam Marshall said.

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